The Mets made a lot of terrible decisions in spring training, and it’s taken well into May to finally undo them.
The Post’s Joel Sherman writes that “the organization recognizes now that it was wrong to hand starting spots to John Maine and Oliver Perez in spring without a fight.”
But the dysfunction goes beyond the rotation. This is the same organization that gave the starting first base job to Mike Jacobs, even though Ike Davis and Chris Carter were having much better springs. And the starting centerfielder on Opening Day was Gary Matthews Jr.
Most, if not all of these decisions have to do with money. The Mets make a bad signing, then make matters worse by not only refusing to eat the salary, but keeping the bad player in the lineup because they are paying him all that money.
Fortunately, things are starting to change, but they won’t really change until the Mets actually start cutting their losses by eating salary. Starting with Gary Matthews Jr. And probably continuing with John Maine.
I can see not dropping Oliver Perez, because that is a lot of money to eat, and Perez is unpredictable enough and has enough upside for him to suddenly find his form with another team. I’m already resigned to that happening once his contract is up.
But I’m sick of constant rumors about trading Luis Castillo, which only show how desperate the Mets are to shed his contract.
Even if the Mets somehow found a taker for Castillo, who will actually play second? Alex Cora showed last year he’s not a starting player. Ruben Tejada is playing short in AAA. Please don’t tell me that the plan is to stick Daniel Murphy there and hope for the best.
It makes you wonder if the Mets are so eager to trade Castillo not to improve the team, but to save money.
In 2006, well before Madoff, and when the Mets were a strong contender, they were still willing to hurt the team by keeping Kaz Matsui on the roster and giving him 30 starts. Matsui hit .200 with an OPS of .505 before the Mets finally got rid of him in June once they had Jose Valentin.
The Mets are having a fantastic week, and overall I’m very happy about it, but I can’t forget that the mess they were in before things started going so well was of their own making.
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